Day 399 - Riding the rejects

The start of our driving today got off to a slow start after being pulled over by the police only 5 minutes after leaving our ger. The problem was that we were a tourist van but didn't have the required tourist stickers on the windows - not to worry though, as after a small 'fee' was paid, we had our stickers and were back on the road again! The long drive began as we made our way to Ulaan Tsutgalan Waterfall - the biggest waterfall in Mongolia. On the way we stopped for lunch which we ate crammed in the van due to the pouring rain outside.

When we got to our ger we were served milk tea and rock solid cheese - this is a staple here in summer, but one we find extremely hard to stomach. Luckily Franco and Marco love the stuff so we were able to pass some off to them!! While our horses were getting ready for our afternoon ride, we watched the family children playing outside - holding hands, rolling around, and giggling away. After Adam spied the families motorbike, he managed to convince them to let him have a ride - first they had to fix it though! Soon Adam was zipping up and down the Mongolian countryside, to add another means of transport to the tour!Our horses can only be described as the 'reject' horses as Liv's was missing an eye, Adam's tail was almost falling off, and Chana's had recently recovered from torn hamstrings. We didn't know whether the owner didn't look after his horses, or rescued them from other families who didn't want them anymore - we prefer to think it was the latter! When we left the ger Sylvie's horse was so fat, but after farting his way all the way to the waterfall, he ended up being normal size - the problem with this was that the saddle was no longer tight and when Sylvie dismounted the saddle fell off and caused Sylvie to slip to the ground. This is turn sent her horse bucking its way around the field, totally freaking out Marco's horse, sending him into a frantic gallop. This resulted in Marco later telling us that he got fucked by his horse!!! Not so funny for him, but hilarious for all of us - and a quote he wouldn't live down for the rest of the trip!!
After recovering from the horse fiasco, we were led down a cliff to get a better view of the waterfall by the 13 year old son of the family whose English consisted of "YES" and "NO", which he would yell at the top of his lungs. Most of the NOs came when Adam decided to do something silly like pretend to jump of the cliff or dive into the water. He did end up taking a swim after a lot of time spent convincing Chana that he wouldn't drown. Apparently a foreigner drowned here last year and Chana's brother also died drowning so we couldn't blame them for being concerned - she was quite surprised to learn that most New Zealanders can swim and regularly swim in the ocean.

We charged back at a faster pace, now that we're expert Mongolian horsemen and women, and enjoyed some beers on a cliff edge overlooking the river. Some of the crew decided to take advantage of Adam's exercise knowledge and then we headed to the ger which was heated by the fire - the same fire that would be stoked in the morning just before we woke up in order to be nice and warm for us!!

The toilet was a little hut a few hundred metres from the ger, and because the door didn't close it provided an amazing view of the countryside and, at night, starlight skies. Adam was even visited by a cow during one of his visits there!

Adlibing the Waterfall.